We would like to wish all our clients a very Merry christmas and a Happy New Year, We are now closed till January 4th 2010.

Any support issues can be emailed to support@cadameida.ie and if you have email issues then call and lease a message on 053 9430748

Best Wishes from Dave, Roz, Mary & Sinead

As any of our regular readers know we are always saying how “The web is Everywhere”.

Well no more so than on mobile phones and with the looming Christmas gift giving season upon us there is no avoiding speak of Apps and Downloads etc.

Google have recently launched their Google Mobile App which allows a user to search for anything by simply speaking into the phone.

This Free service should certainly give the chaps at 11811 and 11850 a run for their money eh?

No longer having to worry about typing errors or how to spell ‘phoenix’ anymore, you can just say “hotels in gorey’ and the results will speak for themselves.

After all, those with the most up to date online presence are surely the most up to date businesses in that sector?…

The Web IS Everywhere…Be part of it…

Talking to a business owner in Wexford recently and the conversation came around to websites and we talked about getting a good high listing in Google. It then became apparent to me that the person did not associate Website design and website optimization as a similar approach to setting upa a website or redesigning a website. I was a bit confused but after thinking about it over the weekend I did a lot of thinking into why they didn’t associate these two processes, because at Cada Media Ltd, we do.

Website Design

Setting up a website can come in many shapes and sizes, many diffferent styles, but all should be designed with a good webmaster practices and guidlines that will give it a generic listing in a search engines. Website design is about creating a search engine friendly website that is also geared towards the reader. We can not just optimise a website for search results, if we just aim at searches engines and neglect we are actually shootig ourselves in the foot in the long run. Search engines tell us to creates sites for humans and think of them second, but 9 times out of 10 website designers create sites for the robots indexing the sites content.

Website Optimisation

This can be considered a method of website design by some and others would see it as something you do to a site afterwards, for us at Cada Media Ltd we like to think of it as a way of creating a website that will be search engine friendly as you build it. Think of it like building a house, do you build it then afterwards put in the insulation? Yeah, I didn’t think so, me neither.

That being said we do come across websites all the time that have no optimisation built into them, even today we got a call from a wedding car hire business in Wicklow that has recently got a website built totally with images. So when i switched off the iamges on the site, we saw a black screen, this is exactly what a search engine would see too. Nothing!

The choice we have,  is to try to do some website optimisation on it, basically fixing it and this would mean redesigning the website from scratch or trying to imput some extra elements like Meta Tags and actual real text.

Again, going back to the similarity to the building trade, talking to builders I have asked them about renovating a house to make it eco energy efficient and they all say the same thing, they would love to knock it down and build from fresh. We are the same, I told the guy on the phone today, we could optimise the website and charge him, but i couldn’t guarantee the work as the overall structure of the sites using nested tables is not search engines friendly. So after we patch up his site, he still has a site that we would consider is limping its way into the search engines.

To summerise, is it called Website Optimisation or Website Design, well we think if you build it right in the first place it called “Website Design”

To get your website optimised for search engines or get a website designed properly, Call Dave Jordan from Cada Media Ltd today on 053 9430748

We would like to inform our clients that we will be closing on Wednesday the 23rd December at 5pm and opening again on the 4th January 2010

Support issues will be carried out as normal by emailing support@cadamedia.ie with the problem, if the problem is your email then telephone 053 9430738 as we will be checking the messages each day.

We would like to wish all out clients a Happy Christmas & a Happy New Year

We have been approached by a local business to revamp their website and bring it up to new modern standards as well as making it content managed by the owners, so we set about the usual investigations to find where the domain was registered and where it is hosted etc.

Eircom business have the account, so we telephoned them and after being given various numbers and talking to different people we finally get the right person on the phone. He then tells me they have no “control panel” to administer the domain name or the hosting pack the customer has bought and that all changes are to be emailed in.

I told him i would have to host it ourselves and he said ok, email in to “dnsrequest@eircom.net” so we contact the client and inform him that he must email them directly as he is the registered owner. sound advice and normal, great.

He then emails then the new name servers we need so we can host the site for him and he get this email back

***********names removed************

Dear customer,

Eircom hosting policy doesn’t allow the change of name servers to avoid
future problems and as it acts as delegation of DNS records.
If you still require to do so you will need to transfer the domain name
registration to new hosting provider by calling sales on 1800 203403
Otherwise send us exact DNS records values like www A, CNAME, mx etc and
those can be implemented no problem.

Kind Regards,
name here,

*****************************************

So if you have your domain name and are hosted with eircom and would like to choose another hosting provider, be aware that this goes against their hosting policy.

For helpful hosting call Cada Media in Wexford today on 053 9430748

With all the bitching and moaning about the changes to the Facebook privacy policy we have to ask ourselves why are they now changing as they have always been one of the most private social medial websites for people to network and meet up.

We believe that it ultimately has to do with search engines now wanting to incorporate content from social media websites into their results. recently we have heard news of Twitter doing a deal with the business networking website “Linked In” to allow that website to bring in its content.

All the Major websites are doing it, MSN live chat now allows you to bring in your MySpace information into your account there. The use of a login system called Open ID allows you to have one account from facebook for example and that can be used on loads of other sites, making it easier to integrate larger and larger sites together.

Facebook is estimated to have nearly 1,000,000 users in Ireland by Christmas 2009, so now they have 1/4 of the population, they also have what all hungry search engines need. . . Content. We talked about content for web last week and how it will be needed more and more in the coming years.

Google Live Search

This is a new feature of Google’s algorithm that basically reads social media websites such as Twitter and uses its content as the results for questions searched for. So this is a big step away from google showing your websites it read through last night and showing you the “latest news”. Well if its from last night then its not the “latest” but if its from Twitter or F it is the latest. Facebook and Twitter are no strapped to a computer desk any more, we carry them around with us, they are now part of most mobile phones with all of us feeding them each time we click on a letter.

Doing a search today, google replied with a live twitter feed as the first results and then the normal listing from websites it would have indexed the day before. This is Google specifically pushing the social media websites as they have the “latest” content and this is why they need to read our content on Facebook!

For more information on how the interweb is changing call 053 9430748 to make an appointment.

Facilities Management,

Management Engineering Technology,

These are just a few of the terms we have learnt when we were asked by Arkman Engineers in Gorey to revamp their static website and create a new content management system to allow them to give the information they need to give to their potential customers in and easy to navigate method.

Arkman Engineers are a team of qualified engineers based in Gorey, Co. Wexford, the company is headed up by Pat Roche and John O’Callaghan. With many years experience in Construction, Food, Health care, Pharmaceutical to name a few.

One of the items that we learnt was a service they provide that whereby they can go into a factory and do a survey to see how efficient the “assets” or machinery of the factory is and then produce reports on how they can cut down a companies “carbon footprint” and reduce their “carbon tax”.

Services provided:

• Website Design
• Training
• Web Marketing
• Link Building

www.arkman.ie

This is one of those questions we don’t get asked but think we should!

Setting up a website

This can be a “next day” delivery if you wish to have a “one page” website or it could be 3 months time if you wish to have an application developed and created for you.  There are many factors that people may not have realised that need to be considered. Heres a few questions we need to ask you:

• Have you registered the company yet?
• Have you registered the domain yet?
• Have you got the hosting setup?
• Have you got the content ready?
• Have you got the site text ready?
• Have you got the images ready?
• Have you got the logo designed yet?
• Do you know what you need?
• Are you just shopping for prices!
• Are you still reading this?

As you can see that is just the basics, we need to know much much more, but these are some of the first questions we must ask clients when they come into the office.

We had a call last week looking for a full content managed online shop for Christmas this year! Totally out of the questions, firstly because it takes at least 15 days to get an online merchant ID from the processing bank, be it Bank of Ireland or Evalon. Then once we have that we must set up the website and test it.

Then the shop must have it virtual online shelves packed, whos doing that? usually the client does that during the training we carry out.

If you are looking to set up a website with a designer please give them at least 3 to 4 weeks notice for a proper website, one pages can be done quicker but real sites take time. Also the web designer might also have other projects on, its the other type of developers, the one’s dealing in bricks and morter who are not busy these days!!! lol

If your thinking about setting up a website, why not give Cada Media Ltd a call on 053 9430747 and we can talk you through some the details you will need.

Make up your mind!

Sitting here working away on a busy Friday after singing happy birthday to Mary and eating our squashy buns from Joanne’s, we heard one of our pc’s in the office saying “google alert” over and over again. (yes it’s annoying, we usually have the sound turned down)

It was a Google alert telling us that we have received an email about a topic we have subscribed to. A Google Alerts is a way of asking Google to email you when someone searches for a phrase or posts information about topics that you are interested in. So you tell google to notify you by email when someone searches for a phrase like. . . “Hair dressers in Wexford” for example that it emails you.

Why would you do this?

Well, it tells you how often a search is carried out, what were the results of the were, basically it’s a simpler version of Google Trends which is another online tool about how people use the web and what they are looking for. More on that, another day.

It’s all about “information” these day, knowing and understanding how the internet and people work together makes for a better web designer and web developer. Wexford web designers such as ourselves are interested in more that if an image goes to the left or the right of a page. We are interested in the method of navigation a person has when they arrive on a site, What pages are they interested in, do they use menu systems or search facilities to find information, do they speed read and jump to anchor text on a page. How long do they stay on each page or is the “bounce rate” very high, meaning that they have literally bounced away from that page.

Its this “information” that is available using web design tools and using your head and a spoonfull of “cop on” as my Dad would say. Often people will tell me how may “hits” they get on a website and I will tell them how many pageviews we get, what time we get them, what button people click on the most, what part of Ireland they are searching from and what our most popular search terms are. They usually ask do I know who the people are and I have to say no, but I know roughly what district in Dublin they are in , if Sandyford or Dun Laughaire etc.

This is available to everyone.

Anyway, getting back to the point!

Today we noticed that a web design business in Wexford has registered a number of domain names and is using these domains to point to their website. Great, I think most of the full time web designers in Wexford, Enniscorthy and Gorey have done this too. All we are doing is speculating that the Google Algorithm will detect this domain and associate it this us.

It’s worth a try, We here have a number of domains we bought about 4 years ago such as

WexfordWebsiteDesign.com and WebsiteDesignWexford.com

Will it help, who knows, it it any harm, Well the Google Webmaster Handbook wouldn’t be putting it top of their list of “great ideas” but at the moment the Google Algorithm seem to like it.

So how does this help you, well if I you’re thinking of registering a domain name, I would suggest  looking for register a .com for instance for your trade and in your town. www.HairdressersWexford.com for example.

Remember Google changes it results everyday, so this is just one way to get ahead in search results, It will be different in 1 month, 6 months etc

To get ahead in business today, call Dave Jordan of Cada Media Ltd on 053 9430748

It was reported online today ( 10 December 09) that one of the oldest Journals in the States is going to shut it doors on the printed version after over 108 years in circulation.

Editor & Publisher is an American journal that reports on the “Print Journalism” industry. Sadly it looks like the publication that reports on other publications is going. With many other USA Newspapers and Magazines going bust in the past 18 months, its not long before we have to look at our print industry here in Ireland.

The Irish Press is now long gone and in fact I doubt any teenager would even know the name, they might if they listened in History class all right. But if we stay on that thought about teenagers and information we must think about where would they look for news and information these days.

Have a guess?

They’d buy their local regional news paper,  . . . don’t think so, they won’t be interested in the courts reports or the kids photos of the latest stage show. They would search online. How do I know . . . because I ask questions and over the past few weeks we have had a number of students from local community schools in the South East in on work experience. We interrogated them on their how they communicate, chat, text, email each other. One student then took out his iphone and logged into his own website and was able to update it as we were chatting!

The 90’s were about getting connected to the Internet, (In Ireland is was indigo.ie pushing the dial up connections)

The 2000’s have been about search engines battling for supremacy to be set up as their homepage.

2010 will be about “content” and online journalism, so if you are in the print industry. I would suggest you do what I did 10 years ago and get your content online. Over 1,000 people a week read this column or the online word for it . . . Blog

To help get your business online call Dave Jordan of Cada Media Ltd to day on 053 9430748

Great to see that the latest budget 2010 has increased the budget for tourism in Ireland and that the government will be investing 3 fold and helping tourism in Wexford with a big spend on celebrating the heritage of John F Kennedy relationship to Ireland and especially Wexford

Brilliant News for County Wexford.

They are also joining forces with Irish Rail to make sure that European senior citizens will be able to use the train system in Ireland thus increasing rural tourism.

We have been the developers of Wexford County Tourism Board Ltd website for the past 6 years and during that time we have pushed them to No 1 in search engines for the term Wexford. We know the power of the Internet and how it has boosted their profile around Ireland and in fact all over the world.

We hope that this increased budget for Tourism in Ireland would be spent wisely and of course be spent on web technology, not just that we get an extra 50,000 brochures printed!

The Internet Works!

Please spend our money wisely, in fact spend it with us as we are website designers in Wexford.

Dave Jordan

Cada Media Ltd

Tel: 053 9430748

The higher VAT rate has just been announced today to be returning to the normal 21% from the 1st January 2010. We would like to let our clients who have online shops to remember to change the higher VAT rate on their websites administration system back to the reduced in January.

Normal shops on the high street will have to change their tills in January 2010 and online sales websites are no different.

We spoke about the “New VAT rates” last year when it changed last year and during the year we found websites all over Ireland that still were selling products at 21% and not 21.5%

Call me if you have any questions about how to adjust your ecommerce website and we will be happy to talk you through how to do it. In fact I think we have a pdf from last year we can email to you explaining how to update the “VAT Rates” in Virtue Mart,Zen Cart and OSCommerce.

Dave Jordan

Cada Media Ltd

053 9430748

It looks like that Truvo Ireland are the latest company finding that other business are approaching their clients and requesting that they spend their advertising budget with them. A few weeks ago we had UK companies calling our clients leading the client to believe they were Google. Many believed it and signed up to a Google adword campaign and paying over £150 per month on pay per click advertising worth only 20 euro a month.

If you get any requests to renew advertising services with Truvo, call them and confirm before you give your hard earned money to someone else.

As the recession kicks in further in Ireland more and more people are grabbing a straws to help their failing businesses. There are dodgy dealers in every business so double check where your sending your money.

Below is an email we received from Truvo Ireland today.

Pass the word.

*******************

Email from Truvo

Valued Truvo Customer – Please Beware!

Dear Sir/ Madam,

Truvo Ireland Ltd., publishers of the Golden Pages and goldenpages.ie, are aware that certain companies unrelated to Truvo are currently using our identity to mislead businesses into purchasing advertising.

The communications from these companies typically concern a request to either renew existing advertising, or alternatively to purchase advertising within a “Yellow Pages” product which is being misrepresented as the Golden Pages. This will not result in any advertisement appearing within either the Golden Pages directory, and/ or on goldenpages.ie.

We advise all customers to beware of any suspicious requests and not to sign any contract that you believe is related to the Golden Pages unless it is on our letter-headed paper and containing all of the following elements:

If you receive any suspicious correspondence or are in any doubt as to the authenticity of any communication, please contact either your existing Advertising Account Executive or our Customer Care team directly on (01) 618 8000.

We at Truvo Ireland Ltd. are doing everything possible in our power to prevent these incidences from occurring and have informed An Garda Síochána. Our customer service and legal departments are working closely together to inform our customers of these incidents.

Kind Regards,

Angelique Kouvelis
Head of Marketing

Visit Our Blog: http://blog.goldenpages.ie/
Visit Us On Twitter: http://twitter.com/goldenpages_ie
Visit Us On http://www.facebook.com/pages/goldenpages

We had an interesting call today from a company in Wexford who were managing their website themselves. They had registered a domain about a year ago. Got web hosting from another company and then found a web developer who was able to create a small website . . and alls well.

So now a year later this company are a little unhappy to say the least that they have got nothing from having a new website. No inquiries not found in Google and now just feel they have thrown away the money they invested in the website. They called us to see if we could help them get some benefit from their website.

They had registered another domain via Lets Host in Dublin and then ordered another service for DNS management to allow them to manage their multiple domains and organise the pointing of the second domain to the first one. It was at this point that they had realised that they had suddenly gone out of their technical knowledge depth.

Having ordered the service and now understanding that they had login details to a control panel they then came to the conclusion that it was time to ask someone who knows what they are doing. Its this realisation that business managers and owners come to with a sense of reluctance as they feel they have failed in their IT skills. They shouldn’t feel bad at all. We “The Internet Professionals” make it sound really easy to buy our services online, log in, edit settings and away you go.

One stop Shop!

It was only after that I explained our services he understood that we would be able to help him out. They we delighted to hear that they no longer would be contacting one company for domains, another for hosting, another for design and then others for web marketing and explaining how the Internet works and generally asking Internet advice.

Being able to have one telephone number to call for all his Internet needs now gives our latest client the ability to concentrate on his business and us to concentrate on his website and using our 10 years experience to drive his business forward.

If this tale of techo woes sounds familiar to you. Call us and let Cada Media Ltd take the misery out of using the net for business

Call Dave on 053 943078

We get asked from time to time is it worth while revamping a website as people feel they already have a site for their business and it’s ok. But in this day and age of where people assume that if your website still has news from two years ago that you are actually gone bust!

Yes, dated websites are doing you no favours when you are trying to get business on-line. Revamp rev up and redesign your site. Talking to people this week they asked me again if there were many people using the internet in Ireland which we have talked about before. One site we operate gets about 7,000 unique page views each month. Now if that was a shop selling fancy dress costumes or Yankie Candles or something specific like that you have to think of that in terms of foot fall.

How many people come into your shop each month? 7,000? not in Gorey in the sunny South East, but on-line they do and each visit is an opportunity to get a sale.

So when someones is wondering if they should revamp their website, you can already guess what my answer is.

Yes, let your visitors know you are still open for business and always ready to receive and inquiry.

We are currently working on a number of revamp designs for clients and bringing their website up to date in terms of look and feel but also to newer, better web standards that people expect these days.

Call us today to schedule your website revamp for 2010, Call Dave on 053 9430748